


Flight From Hebeth

by Time_Lord42 (AwesomestPrussian)



Series: The Rise of Ry'Thralga [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Original Work
Genre: A lot of people die first though, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Dungeons & Dragons Campaign, Dungeons & Dragons Character Backstory, Eventual Happy Ending, Homelessness, Hurt No Comfort, Minor Character Death, POV Child, Self-Hatred, Starvation, Struggle for Survival, a little comfort at the end, but first a lot of hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25002331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwesomestPrussian/pseuds/Time_Lord42
Summary: OR: How Koav Hinala Became a Fallen Aasimar, and survived the unholy wastes.This is part of the character backstory of my Fallen Aasimar Paladin in my current DnD campaign, outlining some of his early life and struggles. Follow him as he flees the ruins of his village, and struggles to survive in wastelands and city streets. I hope anyone who reads this enjoys!
Series: The Rise of Ry'Thralga [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810090





	1. The Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This campaign takes place in a homebrew setting. One Hundred years before the campaign takes place, a terrible, demonic portal opens in the center of the nation of Aom, spewing destruction and horrible monstrosities and creating the monster-infested wasteland known as the Unholy Wastes, where nobody stays alive for long. Koav Hinala, a young protector Aasimar (for now), lives in Hebeth, right in the middle of what will become the Wastes.

The screams were the first thing that roused him from his sleep. They invaded his dream, a pleasant one about baking with his mother. Shaken rudely from his sleep, Koav stumbled wearily to the door of the small home he and his parents shared, the screams drawing him forward, confused and bleary. He pushed the heavy, wooden door open and blinked the last of the sleep from his eyes.

Then the smell hit him.

He didn’t recognize it for what it was at first. His mind, still slightly sleep addled, thought for a second that someone had burned their hand over a cooking fire, like Allard had done last fall. Then he realized. The smell was too strong, too pervasive, to be from a simple accident.

Heart in his throat, he crept from the doorway, bare feet padding along the grass. As he moved through the village, the truth of the situation came to light.

The amphitheater was ablaze. Tongues of flame lept and danced like living things, and as he watched, Koav saw Alia, the baker, consumed. One second she was there, as he had seen her every day for each of his twelve years of his life. The next she was gone, replaced by a corpse, mangled beyond recognition by the ravenous flames. If he had not known who she had been, he would never have known.

As he watched, paralyzed, Koav saw more friends and family consumed by the flame. There, Conrad the elder was devoured. And after him Maya, four months pregnant, was taken by the burning heat and light.  
Shocked into stillness, throat and nose burning from the ashes of those he considered family, Koav could not imagine the situation getting any worse. He was wrong.

The flames had reached their peak and begun to spread to other buildings. The screams spread as well. And then they came.

He didn’t know what they were, only that some flew, some crawled or leapt, and that they were full of a terrible hatred. It radiated off of them in waves, as merciless as the ravenous flames that had begun to consume houses and trees.

They came from nowhere. They came from everywhere. They were brutal. They grabbed people and turned them into meat.

People were running, fleeing the monstrous flood. Out of the side of his vision, Koav saw his father, fighting the tide of fearful people. He was shocked into movement, but soon lost sight of him in the flow.

And then something grabbed him.

Koav screamed, tried to bolt, but the strong arms around his shoulders held him tight. He knew he was going to die, he could feel it. But he would be damned if he would let himself be killed easily. He struggled, but found himself helpless in the strong grasp.

“Little star, I need you to listen to me.” His struggles stilled.

“Mom? What’s going on?”

“Now isn’t the time to ask questions. I need you to be brave, and I need you to run.” His mother’s hair brushed the side of his face, and Koav felt despair welling up in him. He loved his mother’s hair. It was soft, and a beautiful gold, and when he was kept up at night by horrible dreams, she let him twirl the ends between his fingers until he fell back asleep. Now, it was dry and brittle, and it smelled horrible and burnt.

“I can’t.” And it was true. He couldn’t leave the village. It was his home, and it was his to protect. Koav never knew how he knew it, but he knew, deep in his bones, that Hebeth was his to keep safe.

“You will.”

So he ran. He ran from the shrieks of the horses as they burned in their stables, and from the odor of burning flesh and the grisly, unspeakable sounds of bony claws ripping through fragile skin. As he ran and his village burned, he burned as well. The flames scorched his back and his soul, and he felt something in himself shatter. And he burned with the shame of failure.


	2. The Hunger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After he escapes the destruction of Hebeth, Koav struggles to survive alone.

The first time he saw his reflection in the river, he almost vomited. 

He didn't really look any different, but he could see that he was. He was broken. He could feel a dull, throbbing ache, somewhere in his chest. Some days it was worse than others. The pain would fade, then crawl it’s way back out from it’s hole, tearing new wounds as it went.

He had tried to manifest his wings once, but had to quickly put them away. He could see their reflection in the water, and could see that where they had once been full, soft, even beautiful in an ethereal way, they were now skeletal and cold, ghostly. He hated that the deer drinking from the river nearby fled in terror when he stretched them to their full length. And his eyes... he hated how they made him look. Dark and soulless, like a monster. No longer a protector, but something people needed protection from.

He didn’t look in the river after that.

He followed the moving water, adhering to the advice his father had impressed on him as a child. He had run so far and so long that he was entirely lost, and had never been this far from home before. So onward he trekked, following the river and scavenging edible plants from the bank and surrounding area, and chewed on pieces of bark to try and convince his stomach it was full.

He huddled in abandoned animal dens and hollows in the roots of large trees at night. He would lay there in the darkness, sleeping fitfully. The slightest sound would jerk him awake, leaving him to peer into the darkness. Sometimes the noises sounded like the shrieks of the creatures, and some nights it was hard to tell the difference between waking and nightmares.

Sometimes Koav thought he could hear screams and smell brimstone and burning flesh, and those were the times that were the hardest. He was never sure if they were real or not, and he never went to check. Once he followed the river to what used to be another village. He tried his best not to see the ruined, desecrated corpses. He tried not to see the charred faces twisted in fear and agony. He tried to ignore the wisps of smoke that floated up through the tree branches, and he did his best not to gag on the charred smell that it carried, but he still tasted burnt meat and hair and it had brought acid up in his throat.

He kept time by the moon and the trees. He kept alive by the slimmest margins, able to heal his small cuts and wounds and prevent infections with his natural healing abilities. Even when he was able to slightly heal himself, though, he was never without bleeding wounds and bruises. He had given up on healing his feet, saving it for more important moments, like when he broke his nose from slipping in the river when he tried to wash some of the grime from his skin. Because of that, his feet were quickly covered in cuts and dirt, and walking was a painful necessity.

The healing didn’t help the hunger though. 

Every once in a while, he would catch a small glimpse of himself in the river, and sometimes he could hardly recognize the boy he saw. He had always been a bit tall, compared to the other boys, but he had never been especially skinny. The ghost in his reflection was a skeletal reflection of the boy he had been. His hair, previously white and fine, was weighed down and turned grey from filth. The rest of his body was no better. There was only one thing that motivated him to keep going: His mother had told him to survive. So he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank you for reading this work. I welcome constructive criticism, and am happy to hear all feedback.


	3. The Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Koav's first moments of rescue.

Slowly, painfully, Koav made his way out of the wastes, and through the wall that had been hastily constructed to serve as a makeshift barrier against the horrors of what they contained.

The first time he saw another living body after escaping the Wastes, he almost collapsed. She was a guard, a tall human who looked far too young to be guarding such a dangerous post. When she saw him, she drew her spear and shouted for reinforcements.

Koav held his hands in front of him, empty and dirty with nails that were torn and ragged. They shook, and his voice trembled when he spoke.

“Please.” His voice was weak and hoarse from disuse, and he had to try again. “Please, don’t hurt me.” His voice cracked again, and he felt hot tears in his eyes. “I need help.” The guard lowered her spear slightly, still wary.

“Who are you, and where are you from?” Her voice wavered slightly as well. Koav couldn’t blame her. He would be scared to see himself too.

“My name is Koav Hinala. I come from Hebeth.” He choked on a sob and forced himself to continue. “Please, I’m scared and I need help and-” He couldn’t continue. He collapsed, breaking down in tears. He could feel himself shaking, and he was cold. The edges of his vision went gray, and the voices of the guards sounded far off. That was the last thing he knew before his world turned dark.

When Koav woke, he was not sure where he was. It had been too long since he had slept somewhere comfortable, and the feeling had become foreign. For the first time in months, nothing hurt. Then the soldiers came. They told him to follow, and still weak, and very afraid, Koav wordlessly obeyed. They sat him at a table, and placed a plate in front of him. On the plate was a simple, but filling meal. Dark bread and some cut of meat. Bile rose in his throat, and he had to turn quickly to avoid vomiting on the table. Even before the attack, people in his village had lived peaceful, vegetarian lives. Now, the smell of the meat was too much. It was too close to the smell of his home, too close to the smell of his mother’s hair as it brushed his face for the last time.

Koav felt himself begin to shake again.

“Please, I can’t eat this.” he whispered, voice still raspy and weak, both from disuse and the burning acid he had spit up. He felt tears prick his eyes again, and he hated them for how quickly they came. A guide quietly took the plate away. One of the guards gently placed a hand on Koav’s shoulder, then removed it when he flinched.

“It’s going to be alright now,” he whispered softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter, but it's just here to set up the ending, which is a longer one. I'm not as happy with this one, honestly.


	4. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things might be starting to get better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we've reached the end.

Three years. Koav had spent Three years since that night, but the howls and shrieks of whatever had caused his home’s destruction still mingled with the agonized screams of Hebeth each night in his dreams. The other refugees had stopped sleeping next to him by now. Word spread, and everyone knew that laying next to the soft-spoken Aasimar child at night was a fast ticket to a poor night’s sleep, something none of them could afford. As a result, Koav spent his nights coldly, even when he could find space in the meager, overcrowded shelters the city had provided to the hundreds of people displaced by the Unholy Wastes.

Koav hated that name. “Wastes”. It sounded so bleak and lifeless. Dead. It felt wrong to think of his home that way. It brought to mind images of empty, burning deserts and featureless frigid plains. Not the lively, bustling forest he was so used to. He struggled to reconcile the word “Wastes” with his memories of a bustling forest, where silence was a foreign concept. He remembered the constant sounds of either of birds and insects and people, or of night animals and the quiet breaths of his parents as they slept.

He was jolted out of his thoughts by a small voice at his side.

“What do you think they’ve gathered us here for?” it asked. The voice was attached to a halfling child. Koav didn’t know his name, though he had seen the halfling before. He had learned quickly not to bother learning names or build attachments to other displaced refugees. They tended to die too quickly to be worth it. There were a precious few who had made it for more than a year, who he had tentatively began to build connections with, but he was cautious and unsure. Maybe he would get to know this child one day, if he lasted that long. Koav was not hopeful though. The child had a sense of optimism that the life of a refugee hadn’t yet beaten out of him. In his experience, the optimistic ones never lasted long. 

“I said, why do you think they’ve asked us here?” the halfling repeated, pulling Koav from his thoughts.

Koav shrugged a response. It didn’t really matter, one way or another. Every once in a while, the guards would round up some group of the refugees. Sometimes it was all the men who could work, sometimes it was the ill. This time it was the children’s turn.The “why” didn’t really matter all that much, whatever was going to happen would happen with or without his knowledge or input.

“You! Yeah, you with the weird hair. Come here.” a town guard waved Koav over. “Today is your lucky day.” Koav was herded over with another, smaller group of children. He scoffed to himself. He hadn’t had a lucky day since someone threw a bread roll at him last month. He and the other children were herded into a large, long room in a large, long building. There, they were sat at large, long tables and told to wait. Every once in a while, a guard fetched someone and took them out the door. The guards would return, but the child wouldn’t.

Koav didn’t know how long he waited in the long room, and he didn’t care. Eventually his turn came. As he stood, he took a quick look back. He saw the halfling child he’d met earlier, cheerfully swinging his legs as he sat on the bench, waiting his turn to meet whatever waited beyond the guard’s door. Koav turned back to the guard, who was waiting impatiently for the boy to move.

“Let’s go,” rumbled the guard, and Koav followed him through the door.

He followed the guard through the door, and down a short hall. They turned to the left, and then Koav was left alone in a smaller room, with yet another door in the far wall. It was more or less empty, only filled with a couple of chairs facing each other, and a few stuffy looking paintings of old, wealthy looking people on the walls.hesitantly, Koav took one of the seats, keeping an eye on one of the paintings. It’s subject looked a little too much like one of the local fruit merchants, a man known to carry a switch, with a reputation of using it without hesitation on sticky-fingered hands attached to hungry orphans. It was a reputation that Koav knew was well-earned. He didn’t much like the idea of some ancient ancestor of that man peering over his shoulder.

The far door creaking open drew Koav’s attention away from the looming painting. He tensed, expecting another guard. What came through couldn’t have been further from what he expected. A tall, slender elf woman glided into the room, and settled gently into the chair opposite him.

She was beautiful, there really was no other way to describe her. She was dressed simply, even plainly, but that did nothing to detract from her beauty. Her hair was long and dark, and she wore it in a single braid down her back. Her eyes were dark too, warm but with an undercurrent of steel and strength. She looked like she could face any conflict and come out unharmed. She felt safe, and Koav felt himself relax a little.

“Is your name Koav Hinala?” she asked. Her voice was as smooth and dark as her hair. Her tone was gentle, but it was clear that she had no time for games or secrecy.

“Yes ma’am.” Koav whispered. Even years after his ordeal, Koav didn’t speak much, and when he did it was quiet and his voice was rough.

“Good. Welcome home.” She smiled then, and it was like the full moon came out from behind the clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading my story! I had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. If you have any questions, comments, critiques, or just want to say hi, feel free to leave a comment. Have a lovely rest of your day (or night. I don't know when you're reading this).

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for taking the time to read my work! I'm a little out of practice, so constructive criticism is very welcome. I opted to leave some things vague, so if anyone has any questions about the story or the campaign itself, feel free to ask!


End file.
